Inderpal Grewal

On her book Saving the Security State: Exceptional Citizens in Twenty-First-Century America

Cover Interview of February 18, 2018

A close-up

Readers encountering my book might first turn to the chapter on Hurricane Katrina, which captures the context of the book, both with regard to the problems of a retreating welfare state that treats its citizens as aliens and celebrity and heroic humanitarianism. Other chapters follow this first case study, and build on it by showing how the U.S. security state separates out those it favors and those it discards, and how it treats people of color, African Americans and Muslims. It also shows how U.S. power is viewed around the world via transnational media corporations, such as CNN, and how the images of New Orleans after the Hurricane also impacted the global stature of the United States. Each chapter addresses a different group impacted by security concerns, and readers might turn to these according to their interests with regards to race, religion or gender. Some might also turn to the chapter on humanitarianism, especially the critique of Greg Mortenson’s book, Three Cups of Tea. Many have read this book in schools and colleges so this section of my book will certainly be of interest to those readers.

gender / united states / race / democracy / war / security / international relations / terrorism / states / imperialism /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009